Tesla Could Adopt Apple’s AirPlay To Improve In-Car Audio

Tesla has often bashed Apple with Elon Musk claiming that the Cupertino-based tech giant is a graveyard of ex-Tesla engineers. Tesla has also famously not adopted Apple’s phone streaming technology called CarPlay, but Elon Musk could be warming up to the idea of Apple’s Airplay audio streaming technology which works over Wi-Fi for gadgets like the Apple TV and HomePod.

Tesla’s audio system has often been well received by car enthusiasts and reviewers alike. Musk himself has claimed that many of the audio engineers at the company come from the iconic Danish audio company Bang & Olufsen (B&O) and said that sound systems have been engineered in such a way that they cost a fraction of what an actual B&O system would cost.

When a Twitter user asked the world’s wealthiest human if Tesla would consider adopting Apple’s AirPlay protocol which streams audio via Wi-Fi rather than Bluetooth opening avenues for high-resolution audio as the protocol has more bandwidth, Musk seemed open to the idea.

“Tesla audio engineers come from B&O & many other companies. They literally rock. Our system is highly programmable, so we keep improving it via OTA codec updates,” he said.

“Will discuss this and other improvements with Tesla audio engineering. The new Model S and X sound system is incredible,” he added.

Apple only recently opened up AirPlay for third party devices as now it doesn’t only have Apple Music as an audio streaming service, but it has a video service called Apple TV+ which works on Android TVs by brands like Samsung and Sony.

Tesla was also rumoured to be building a native app for Apple Music in 2021 but that never surfaced. Automakers have been often cagey about adopting platforms by tech majors as they feel the data they will share will eventually enable those majors to enter the auto industry as a rival as cars become more like computers with the advent of electrification, autonomy and connected car trends.